Experts find genetic link to lung cancer

December 22, 2008 12:00:00 AM PST

Scientists seem to have discovered a genetic link to lung cancer.Researchers in China and the United States say they've identified mutations of two genes which appear to make ethnic Chinese more susceptible to lung cancer.

The genes were thought to help eliminate carcinogens from the lungs. But scientists analyzed 500 patients with lung cancer and 517 without, and say the gene variants were found much more often in individuals with lung cancer than in cancer-free patients.